


Be Better

by theshizniiit



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Guilt, Kinda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2493779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshizniiit/pseuds/theshizniiit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard is doing okay at Starfleet Academy.<br/>Until feelings of guilt and uselessness run him into the ground.<br/>Kind of like it always does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Better

Leonard thinks about David McCoy every day of his goddamned life.

And it's killing him.

To be fair, thoughts of his father and his death ( _"How you killed him", his traitorous mind supplies_ ) haven't surfaced in a long time. He had been so busy with his divorce and his feelings of uselessness that the guilt had taken a back seat.

But as soon as he stepped foot in that dorm room at Starfleet Academy, the voice came back and he couldn't keep it together long enough to notice that he wasn't healthy and that he should seek help--fast.

He just worked.

Leonard was good at that. He was good at working. He was a good doctor, and the fact that he barely ate or slept anymore meant that he had more time to study and be a _better_ doctor.

It's a pretty good deal, Leonard decided.

He was a failure at everything else. A failure of a son, a failure as a husband and a failure as a father but at least he had his work.

He couldn't be a failure as a doctor too.

So he injects himself with another hypo full of caffeine and skips a lunch break, tending to an injured cadet.

He feels accomplished.

He even manages to hold conversations with fellow cadets other than Jim.

And whenever the pale blue thoughts of his father creep back and put that haze over his mind he shakes himself into action to ward them off.

After a while though, they get stronger and harder to shake off. Like they always do.

When he hears a small, slimy voice at the back of his head whisper, _"He did so much for you and you let him die."_ , Leonard clenches his eyes shut and grits his teeth in a secluded corner of the Starfleet Academy clinic before he skips lunch and instead bandages a fellow cadet's hand before he gets started on his midterm thesis on alien diseases.

He doesn't deserve a break. He has a to be better.

The next time the voice is louder and he cringes before he bites down a gasp and closes his eyes and focuses on breathing.

He skips dinner and takes on 3 extra shifts at the clinic. It's not the worst thing to happen to him, and he can still sleep a little once he gets back to the dorm before class the next day.

It becomes a routine. The more he tears himself apart inside thinking about his father or Jocelyn or Joanna, the less he eats or sleeps or pauses to breathe.

He has to be better.

And he feels like he is, even though he's exhausted and his cadet reds don't fit as well as they used to, Leonard just shrugs it off and makes a note to get them a bit smaller when he gets a chance.

And so the bags under his eyes deepen, his grades rise and his resolve crumbles bit by bit and it isn't until James T Kirk, premiere hot damn mess of  Starfleet Academy (and proudly so, he tells McCoy one night) himself is waiting in his dorm when he stumbles in from an all-nighter at the clinic setting bones and running regenerators over idiotic kids that got their hands stuck in something in engineering, that he knows that maybe he's been pushing himself a bit too hard.

He blinks at the blond standing in the middle of the room and grunts, dropping his bag and going for some replicated coffee, before he feels a soft hand grab his.

"Bones, no." Jim's voice is soft, like he's talking to someone who might crack.

That just annoys Leonard even more.

"Jim-" he growls.

"Bones. We need to talk. You have to take care of yourself. This is ridiculous. Four extra shifts tonight? Really?" 

"'M fine, kid."

"Oh yeah. Sure. That just screams, _'fine'_."

"Well, I am. You can leave now."

"No. Not leaving.", Jim says stubbornly, "Not until you tell me why-"

"Jim- _get out_."

"No."

_"JIM."_

"No, not until you tell me why-"

"Why what?"

"Why you're running yourself into the ground, Bones!" the blond snaps.

"I'm not! I'm _fine_." Bones grouses.

"You have bruises under your eyes." Jim says slowly, eyeing Leonard like he might collapse.

"So-"

"You're living on coffee and have avoided food for days-"

"Are you watchin' me?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Well, don't. That's weird, kid."

Jim sighs and throws up his hands, "You always snap and yell at me when I do things like this but it's okay when you do it? Bones-"

"Just leave, Jim!"

"Just tell me _why!_ "

Leonard sways on his feet and plops himself in one of the chairs at his small dorm table, the anger leaving him and it hits him how utterly _tired_ he is as he sits rubbing at his eyes and running a hand through his hair.

"I have to be better." He says quietly.

Jim approaches slowly, his footsteps soft like he's trying not to startle him.

"Better at what?" He says as he slips into the chair opposite Leonard.

"...At everything." Bones sighs, looking down at his hands. He notices they're shaking and he wraps one hand over the other, trying to conceal it.

The blonde sees anyway.

"Why?"

"I don't know." Bones croaks, his eyes downcast, the one light that's on in the dorm shining on half of his face, the rest shadowed by the darkness.

They are silent and Leonard knows that Jim is waiting for him to continue.

He swallows thickly.

"My father asked me to kill him." Leonard whispers, "He was dyin' and in pain and--I couldn't stop it. So I-I did it. I couldn't save him. I wasn't good enough. And then there's Jocelyn and I haven't seen Joanna in months and I can hardly _breathe_ without thinkin' about how I murdered my father- and I'm just not--good enough. Ever. I have to do better-"

"Bones-"

"-he was dependin' on me to save him and to make it _better-_ " Leonard continues, eyes wide and breath quickening.

"Bones-"

"And the one time he asked me for somethin' and I couldn't even do that-"

"Bones!"

Leonard snaps back to reality, his panicked haze disappearing around him.

Jim gets up--his face stony but his eyes soft--and offers Leonard his hand.

"Come on, Bones."

 

In the end, he finds himself curled up with Jim on his bed, them facing each other, breathing each other's air as Jim cards a gentle hand through his hair. He doesn't have the strength to mentally sort out this new turn of events with Jim, and as the blond runs his hand through his hair he finds himself drifting in that comfortable place between sleep and wakefulness.

"It wasn't your fault." Jim murmurs, "He asked you to do it. That's not on you, Bones. You were just doing what your father wanted."

Bones' eyes open a crack.

"But I could'a-"

Jim shushes him softly, "No, there's nothing you could have done. He knew what he was asking Bones. He was in pain. You stopped it. It's not your fault."

"I'm still sorry." Bones says sleepily.

"I know." Jim soothes, "I know. You don't have to be."

Bones is silent, but his eyes drift closed and he shuffles closer to Jim and curls himself a little more into his warmth.

There isn't much talking after that, but Jim vows to make sure Bones knows that there's no need for him to be better.

Because he's perfect as is.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hahahaha who's a huge sucker for hurt!bones hahaha not me ahahahaha
> 
> *nervous laughter continues*


End file.
